


After the hug

by thepurplewombat



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gift Fic, M/M, Mrs Hudson knows all, What happened after the hug, confessions is what
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-01-10
Packaged: 2018-09-16 16:05:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9279233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepurplewombat/pseuds/thepurplewombat
Summary: What happened after the hug?





	

Eventually, John stops crying. It takes a while, but when the tears finally stop he feels better than he has in a while. Yeah, his eyes feel as though someone has coated them in sandpaper, and he’s pretty sure that he’s gotten snot all over Sherlock’s shirt, but he feels…lighter, somehow. As though a burden he hadn’t noticed he was carrying, is suddenly gone.

 He loosens his hands. At some point they’d migrated to clutching the back of Sherlock’s shirt so tightly that John is pretty sure the creases are going to be there forever. Sherlock releases him immediately, and steppes back. John tries not to feel bereft.

 “Okay?” Sherlock asks. He seems hesitant, not like himself, and John can’t stop himself noticing the slightly blurred edges of the word, where Sherlock’s swollen mouth and stuffed nose robs him of his usually-precise diction.

 John shrugs. _Do better,_ the echo of Mary’s ghost whispers in his mind.

 “That was…that thing you did, that was…” he looks for the right word, and eventually his mind presents him with, “good. Thank you.”

 It’s amazing. Sherlock doesn’t move a muscle but his face lights up and he looks…transcendent. It lasts only a moment and then Sherlock Holmes is back, but with a new softness around his eyes and his beautifully expressive mouth, a melancholy twist that John has never really seen before.

 “I’m glad no-one saw that,” Sherlock murmurs, turning away. “Mrs Hudson will think she’s been right all along.”

 And John has been deflecting and denying for years – _years, since school and uni and Afghanistan, years of saying the words over and over as though they could protect him from…something, he didn’t even know what, maybe himself? –_ but he can’t just let that stand.

 “Hasn’t she, though?” he suddenly asks, and Sherlock freezes with his back to John. He doesn’t even look like he’s breathing.

 John waits. He can be patient, if the goal is worth it, and this goal, he’s just decided, is worth _everything_. It takes almost a minute before Sherlock unlocks, and takes a deep breath. He doesn’t turn around as he asks, “What do you mean?”

 It takes John aback for a moment, but then he squares his shoulders and soldiers on, because he’s just given this man a speech about taking your fate in both hands and he _damn_ well will practice what he preaches.

 “Mrs Hudson,” he says. “Lestrade. Irene. Even Mary, for God’s sake! They’ve been telling me and telling me for years, and I didn’t believe it, didn’t _want_ to believe it but…Sherlock, are you in love with me?”

 Sherlock doesn’t answer, and John, both fists clenched so tightly that they’re almost certainly going to hurt later, presses on before Sherlock can deflect or deny or even respond.

 “Because….because I think I’m in love with you. I think I’ve been in love with you for years, and I’ve been telling myself that it’s just friendship, but.” And that’s as far as he can go. That’s as much as he can say to that rigid back, those shoulders, that bowed head.

 Sherlock doesn’t turn around.

 “John, if this is just some kind of…”

 And John doesn’t let him go on, because this is too important, this needs to be said.

 “No, Sherlock, it’s – look, when you…when you were dead, right? I had a lot of time to think. And one of the things I thought about was us. Well, it’s actually all I thought about, but artistic license, yeah? And I realised that I would have spent the rest of my life with you, and I would have been happy. Even if we were never anything more than friends, because I love you, and I just…I love you. And it’s okay if you don’t feel that way, you don’t have to-“

 “I do,” Sherlock says, and it’s quiet, so quiet John wouldn’t have heard it if he wasn’t listening for the faintest interjection.

 There’s a moment of silence, and you can hear a pin drop.

 “You-“

 “I love you,” Sherlock says, and he begins to pace, just as he always did when he was explaining his deductions. “Of course I love you John, don’t be stupid! I wouldn’t fake my death for just anyone. Of course, I didn’t really _understand_ until…well, that doesn’t matter now. Anyway, I love you, and I think I’ve loved you since the day we met. You said I was amazing, do you remember? And it was like fireworks in my brain. And later on you thought…well. What you just said about Mary and how you wanted to be the version of yourself she saw? You were that for me. You’ve always been that for me. You’ve always held me to a higher standard, believed better of me than I did myself. You’re my conductor of light, John, and when you were gone…” Sherlock turns, and there’s an aching vulnerability in his face, almost like when he was on the floor in the morgue. A sort of fatalism, like someone who is expecting to be hurt and is resigned to it. “When you were gone it was as though the whole world had turned to shadow, and I couldn’t…I couldn’t see.”

 And Sherlock’s voice cracks on the last words, as they did in the hospital – _God, John wants to see Culverton burn, if only to erase the way Sherlock’s voice broke as he said that he didn’t want to die_ – and his hand goes to his mouth as though he can’t quite believe what has escaped from it. He is about to turn away again, but John finds himself taking a long step and pulling Sherlock into his arms.

 Sherlock lets him, lets John guide his head to rest on John’s shoulder. Lets his arms go around John even as John rests one hand in his hair and the other on his hip.

 Even as John murmurs into his hear that he loves him, he loves him, he’s always loved him and always will.


End file.
